


Book of Death

by Soobiebear



Category: Metallica
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 04:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12100869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soobiebear/pseuds/Soobiebear





	Book of Death

Hidden away in a backpack was a small notebook. It was hardly more than the size of his hand, even if you counted the white spiral at the top holding the fraying pages together. At one point it has a previous duty to fill, instead it ended up crammed in with Lars' passport and bank ledger. Written in Danish with a chewed up crystal Bic pen he kept in the spiral, there was no reason to hide it from anyone else. Here it lived, scribbled in late at night, half stoned with a hangover threatening or early morning as soon as the hangover let up enough to focus on the page.

For as unassuming as it was, Lars always broke out in a cold sweat whenever he had cause for a new entry. Sometimes it was a fresh memory, adrenaline still pumping as he struggled to write. Most of the times it was a few hours later, the spine piercing chill of memory reminding him that despite his youth, he was anything but invincible.

1982 had been a fucking shit year. He'd already cheated death several times over thanks to Dave, and 1983 had already started off on the same track. Lars little book let him know that since the first there had already been three serious attempts on their lives, all caused in some way by Dave.

02/01/83 - Buyer thought he was shortchanged

Yep, and him and his druggie friends had come straight up to Dave, Lars, and Stred when they were out getting lunch that afternoon. They were not friendly chaps, and were much more armed than Lars himself had been. Thankfully Dave was loud and stupid, drawing the attention away from the two Europeans as they carried on to Burger King.

Lars never did figure out how Dave made it through all this without any bullet holes or knife wounds.

01/01/83 - Jealous boyfriend

They'd both been guilty of that one, but it was enough of an excuse to put it in the book. Dave had been after her too, and took the brunt of the fists when the guy came out ready to fight.

05/01/83 - Chicken Parmigiana

It was a valid reason. Dave's cooking could kill anyone, but short of money and out of IOU's at Burger King, they dealt with a homemade meal courtesy of Dave. God only knows where he stole the pack of chicken breasts from, but he seemed to know what he was doing in the kitchen.

Looks were deceiving and everyone spent the next two days fighting over the single bathroom. The raw chicken escapade felt like the closest he'd actually come to death, without any of the endorphins of a good fight.

The list went halfway back into 1982 when Lars discovered the pattern that having Dave around could seriously be detrimental to long term survival. Just in case anything did happen, he figured his dad would want answers. After a few months he realized that it wasn't going to help any because there were far too many entries.

25/08/82 - Dave put timing belt on car wrong

It wasn't their car; Lars would have just beat the shit out of Dave when the car died and then made him fix it. The car belonged to Dave's supplier, one truly scary fucker. Dave looked like a rank amateur next to this dude, and having him show up after catching a ride with a friend... Lars was just happy he had made it out alive.

12/08/82 - Vicious dogs

What fun that day was, the day Dave decided to get the dogs to watch his stash. The same dogs that would later go on to scratch Ron's car. It was the first day with the dogs in the house, both sides scared of each other and forced into cramped living conditions. The dogs looked half starved, and Lars knew he was half starved. It didn't help that Dave dropped the dogs off at the house, spent ten minutes with them and then took off to see his girlfriend. James had some experience with dogs, but the only dogs Lars had ever seen had all been friendly, not guard dogs.

30/7/82 - Drunk driving

One of Dave's favorite past times, it featured prominently in the little journal. Dave drove erratically to begin with, speeding and blowing through traffic signals. When he was drunk every single traffic law went out the window. Lars was drunk at the time as well, but it was Dave's turn to drive and he hadn't said no. "I'm good," was all he kept saying. The scratched paint on the passenger side the next morning showed just how OK he wasn't.

"Dave, I think you're swiping cars," Ron tried to shout over the cassette, singing, wind, and road noises.

Dave tossed his can out the window, letting it tumble behind the swerving car. "Nah, it's the brakes!" he shouted, taking his eyes from the road as he dug on the passenger floor mat for an unopened can. The cars on Fountain Ave suffered at his steering.

Lars flipped through pages of the stuff, memories laid bare in black ink.

18/11/82 - Caught stealing

Honestly, Lars was flattered. He's punched a hole in his snare head again and didn't have a replacement. Broke as usual, he resigned himself to taping it up with duct tape or putting on an already dead head until he could scrounge up ten bucks. If he could find five dollars he might be able to swap for a better used one. Instead Dave had gotten him in the car and drove them over somewhere near MacArthur Park. With a quick instruction to stay in the car with the windows up Dave headed into a store. Lars watched out the window at the homeless and drug addled, the mental patients wandering around chasing invisible ducks, career criminals mixing with the affluent passing through. Dave emerged from the store at a dead run, throwing himself into the car and peeling out as Lars found himself thrown back into the rancid upholstery.

"Get down! Get down!" Dave screamed while pushing him lower in the seat. Lars didn't know what followed him out of the pawn shop and didn't dare get up to look.

When they'd gone a few blocks Lars was the proud owner of a slightly used Remo drum head for only the price of a new pair of underwear. He can't say it was worth it, but he did have a new snare head and it was more than anyone had done for him in a while.

28/02/83 - Spiked drugs

That big pile of cocaine? That wasn't cocaine after all. Lars spent the rest of the night crawling on the ceiling.

21/08/82 - Roasted to death

Dave's turn to pay the electric bill. Turns out being a career drug dealer is not as reliable as one would have thought. 105 is pretty damn hot no matter what, but a fan would have been nice. Three days of heat in a row and everyone was on each other' s nerves. If they didn't die of heat stroke he was pretty sure James was gonna kill someone. Dave sat under a garden hose, letting the coldish water mat his hair and run off the front porch. Cooking was out of the question, as was practice. Lars retreated to the bathtub, filling it with water and deciding to be a mermaid until the heat stopped or the electric company took pity on them. James' payday couldn't be soon enough.

"Caught in a love triangle", "Bar fight", "Car jacking", "Robbery", "Overdose", "Fight while drunk", "Fucked married woman"... Lars let the pages flip past. Stories all of them. Enough stories that he was about to show James the book. Sooner or later fate would catch up with Dave; Lars just hoped he wasn't in the way when it happened. James either. He started to think Ron had been the smart one for getting out, until he remembered that he hated Ron and his stupid attitude, but he was starting to see what Ron had been saying about Dave.

Their new guy Johnny Z was trying to get them out to New York for some label interest. They were looking at three days trapped in a car with Dave. They'd never make it. Cliff would get stoned and fall asleep, James would hide with his headphones on, leaving Lars to kill Dave and spend the rest of his life in jail. Or to be killed as Dave drove too fast on some freeway and splattered them all across the highway.

Things with Dave were coming to a head and he had to talk to James. Digging up potatoes his mom would have called it. They replaced Ron and look how great that turned out; they could replace Dave. He was shit anyway when he was drunk, which was always. February started the guitarist hunt in earnest. There were a few promising guys out there. Lars would have to bridge the idea to James quickly, Johnny would find something for them sooner or later. New York was where it was happening he kept saying.

The move to San Francisco hadn't slowed Dave down, if anything the unfamiliar surroundings heightened his already amazing alcohol and drug use.

4/12/82 - crushed by futon

One of the funnier entries when Lars looked back. Out of bedrooms, someone dragged home a futon for the living room. Lars was sleeping away when Dave finally got home at 9am, high out of his mind and started randomly busting up the furniture. Wood and metal cracked and split as Dave made matchsticks out of Lars' futon-bed while Lars was still in it. Dave had scratched Lars' face and bruised an arm bad enough that Lars thought it was broken before they could restrain Dave. Dave hadn't even known Lars was in the bed, and by the time he came down was all apologies.

16/9/82 - Pissed off promoter

First gig at the Stone, their new home. Drunk Dave insults the owner, assaults the promoter, argues with the bouncer, and settles for picking on Lars. The bouncer, named Rhino, didn't much care if Dave is a patron or artist, and after the gig was done decides to let everyone know they had to keep the loose cannon in line. The owner and promoter got wind of Dave's altercation with security and threaten never to hire them again. James was going to kill Dave, and Dave was ready to kill James back. The bouncer was more than willing to help both sides, a maniacal grin on his face as he softly slapped his billy club into his palm.

March brought them fortune, along with more entries to Lars' journal. Nights when he wasn't playing Lars hunted the scene in San Francisco, following a few bands around and talking to a few guitarists. Kirk seemed to be a front runner if he could lure him away from Exodus.

March also brought one of the strangest entries.

5/03/83 - heart attack

He wasn't sure how else to put it. After striking out listening to a shitty bar band, Lars found himself heading home to the little yellow house at 10pm. Most parties wouldn't even get started for two more hours, but he had a splitting headache and the band was so bad there was no point in staying and watching them get worse as the night went on.

Wanting nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep away the migraine, Lars stared at the sock on his bedroom doorknob, their sign not to enter. James must have a girl in there. Cliff was jamming with himself in the living room and the amp drove icepicks further into his skull. He decided to crash on Cliff's bed and opened the door without any second thoughts. He stopped in his tracks as the light from the hall flooded the dim room. Dave was on all fours on the bed facing the door, a women's red camisole stretched across his chest and naked from the waist down. Behind him was a very large man Lars had never seen before, one hand on Dave's rear. Dave's curly pigtails bounced as he lifted his head.

"Get out of here!" Dave hissed at a frozen Lars. Without a word Lars backed out of the bedroom and shut the door. Thinking about what he'd seen would only make it worse and he decided to sleep in the garage. One night wouldn't kill him, and he could take the blanket and pillow out of his kick drum for now.

Johnny had been true to his word and the trip was less than a week away. Lars knew Dave was out. He had to be, they couldn't keep going on like this. Lars clutched the little book close to him, hoping James would sit through his translation and go with his plan. Kirk seemed interested with the promise of some presumptuous label intent, and Dave showed no signs of slowing down.

Notepad in one hand and doorsock in the other, Lars knocked on James' door for what would probably be a life altering discussion. He waited before pushing the door open, carefully putting the sock on the handle before closing it behind him. James was in a small chair by the student desk shoved under a window, the only place in the house suitable writing or paying bills. James looked over his shoulder and set his beer on the cluttered desktop, pushing aside bits of paper with the bottom of the can.

"What's up?"

Lars sat on the edge of the unmade bed, the only place to sit other than an old beat up Fender Champ. Lars ran his thumb across the edge of the fraying notepad, letting the pages flip under his fingers.

James eyed the notepad and waited for Lars. "Umm, you got a minute?"

Gangly limbs twisted, James turning on the seat to give Lars his full attention. "Yeah," he nodded.

Lars thumbed his book and looked at his hands, suddenly unsure how to broach the subject of firing Dave. Despite their fights, James and Dave were pretty tight when Dave wasn't using. "Um, you know, I was thinking, I saw this guy Kirk and if Dave’s gonna get us killed one day, Kirk could come to New York instead and he’s thinking of leaving Exodus anyway, and if we, umm, could get Dave to go then maybe Kirk could play with us he’s really good have you seen him play?”

James’ eyes glazed over about half way through the long sentence. “What?”

Lars took a deep breath and tried again. “I don’t want to die.”

“What?” James said with more concern this time. At least Lars had his attention.

“Dave’s gonna kill me. Us.”

"He’s not that bad,” James shook his head as Lars took in a breath to argue. “Ok, yeah, he is, but he’s not gonna kill you or nothin’.” He thought for a second. “Did he say something to you?”

Lars held out the book for James’ perusal. “Here’s all the times he’s tried.” Slowly James reached out and took the notepad, flipping through the pages of angular block print. He wasn’t able to figure out the words, but the dates were there.

“New years?” James kept flipping pages. “You were sniffing up her crack too.”

Lars shrugged. “But Dave’s the one who turned it into a fight.”

“What is spirituskørsel? I see it here a lot.” James was looking at each page now, struggling with the foreign language.

”Umm, drink driving.”

James hummed and read. ”I’m glad you have all this written down.” He flipped the notepad closed and handed it back to Lars. ”Been looking for an excuse for weeks.”

”You have?” Lars felt the weight of the world lift off his shoulders.

”Yeah, man, but it’s Dave, you know. He’s not gonna take no for an answer.” James picked up his beer again and took a drink.

”What if we don’t give him a choice?” James raised an eyebrow. ”Fire him again.”

James stared at Lars, knowing it was a bad idea. ”He won’t go for it. No way. If you haven’t noticed he’s not exactly the ’tuck tail and run’ sort of guy.”

He had a point. Lars hadn’t thought that far ahead. Dave wasn’t just gonna leave because they said so. He’d just turn up again the next day like he usually did after getting fired. He’d sober up and take a shower and right about 4pm he’d apologize and promise to never do it again. Until he would do it all over again a few days later.

An idea dawned. ”What if we fire him while we’re in New York."

Now James was really looking at him like he was crazy.

”No, listen, if we get to New York, party for one last night, let him get drunk and high and pass out, we can wake him up early before he really knows what’s going on and send him back here on his own. It’ll give him three days to cool down.”

”That’s evil,” James frowned. ”Even for you that’s evil.”

Lars rubbed at the start of a throbbing headache. ”You got a better idea?” James was silent and Lars grunted.

James drained his beer but held on to the empty can, staring at the silver colored aluminum. ”You’re gonna have to do it.”

The notepad in his hand weighed a ton; the guilt at Dave’s luck running out and taking James or Cliff with it was too much to bear. The unpleasant things always seemed to fall to him. ”You gonna help me?”

”Yeah,” James said as if he’d been gutted. ”Yeah.”

Lars flipped to the last few sheets in the notepad. Still too many chances, too many times for luck to catch up with them. They had a date and a plan, Lars just hoped that they managed to get Dave on the bus back home before the last page was filled in.


End file.
